Hal Johnston was sitting in traffic on the expressway heading to school on Wednesday morning when his phone rang.
It was a number he didn’t recognize, but it had a 610 area code—meaning it was someone calling from the Philadelphia suburbs—so he decided to take a chance and answer.
“Hello?” he said cautiously.
“Hal, Hal Johnston?” a voice said.
“Yes,” Hal said, still thinking it might be a salesman of some kind.
“Hal, it’s Tom Nussbaum. I’m your counterpart at King of Prussia–North. Well, sort of your counterpart. I coach the boys’ soccer team.”
Something in the way Nussbaum said boys put Hal on edge.
“Tom, what can I do for you?” he said, trying to keep his voice friendly.
“Actually, it’s something I can do for you,” Nussbaum said. “I think we both want Friday’s game to be hard-fought, clean and fair, and may the best team win.”
Something inside Hal told him this conversation wasn’t going to go well.
“Of course,” he said. “I would think that’s a given.”
“As far as I’m concerned it is,” Nussbaum said. “But there’s a potential problem, and I want to see if the grown-ups can work it out before something bad happens.”
“Problem?”
“The girl,” Nussbaum said.
He’d been right. “What about the girl?” Hal said, aware of the fact that his voice was rising.
“I’m like you, Hal, I think boys should play on teams with boys and girls should play on teams with girls.”
It was at that moment that it occurred to Hal Johnston that he really didn’t feel that way anymore. As much as it pained him to admit it—even to himself. Andi Carillo had proven herself as a player and a teammate, and could clearly compete with the boys in the league. Nussbaum’s comment suddenly felt wrong.
He decided not to voice his opinion … yet.
“And?” he said.
“My guys have had to play against girls three times already this season. Fortunately, I’ve been able to rein them in enough that no one’s gotten hurt—though there have been a couple of close calls.”
“Because you’ve reined them in,” Hal said skeptically.
“Yes,” Nussbaum said. “I told them they didn’t need to cut the girls any breaks, but I didn’t want any dirty play.”
“Uh-huh. So what’s this got to do with Friday?”
“We both know what’s at stake,” Nussbaum answered. “Winner gets to play for the league championship. Loser gets to go home. I’m not honestly sure I can promise nothing will happen to your girl…”
“Her name’s Andi, Andi Carillo,” Hal broke in, feeling some anger rising in his neck as he pulled off the exit ramp onto Route 1. “Coach, are you threatening me? Or my player?”
Nussbaum laughed humorlessly. “Threatening you? Come on, Hal, get serious. I’m going to threaten an eleven-year-old girl?”
“That’s what it sounded like to me.”
“Absolutely not. I pledge to you I’ll do everything I can—as I said earlier—to make sure my boys play a clean game. But you may have heard the old saying about boys being boys…”
“Let me tell you something, Nussbaum, if any of your players steps out of line with Andi, I’ll come after you long before the referee does anything.”
“Goodness, your tune has changed since September, hasn’t it, Hal? I’ll do what I can. That’s the best I can do.”
He hung up, leaving Hal spluttering at the phone. The guy had threatened one of his players.
He also realized the coach sounded a lot like he himself had sounded just a few weeks earlier. He was embarrassed.
He wheeled into the school parking lot and went straight up the stairs to the principal’s office. He needed the support and advice of Arthur L. Block.
Four hours later, Mr. Block and Hal Johnston sat in Mr. Block’s office with Andi Carillo and her parents.
After the coach had told the principal about his conversation with Coach Nussbaum, they had decided to ask Andi’s parents to come to school during lunch hour to discuss the situation. Hal Johnston knew Andi wouldn’t want her parents called in, but they really had no choice.
The coach was 99 percent convinced that neither the parents nor their child would be willing to even consider her not playing in the game. But he agreed when Block said, “Regardless, we have to make them aware of this and decide if there’s action to take prior to the game.”
Once Coach J had repeated what Nussbaum had said, Andi spoke—waving off her dad, who clearly wanted to respond.
“Hang on, Dad,” she said. “I know exactly what you want to say. Coach, we appreciate your concern. I was warned about this after last Friday’s game by…”
“Carrie O’Shea,” her father said, filling in the blank for his daughter.
“Right,” Andi continued. “She said she’d been treated very roughly on several occasions during her team’s game with King of Prussia and had also been subjected to all sorts of rude, sexist comments.”
“Andi, how do you feel about playing against these guys?” Coach Johnston asked—though he knew the answer.
“I can’t wait,” Andi said, eyes narrowing.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Question then is how do we proceed from here?”
“Well, the first thing I’m going to do is call my counterpart at KP–North,” Mr. Block said. “He’s new, and I’m guessing he knows little or nothing about this. Maybe he can have a talk with the coach.”
“Someone needs to apparently,” Andi’s mother said. “It almost sounds like the coach has put a bounty on Andi’s head. That can’t be tolerated.”
“We could go to the media, too,” Coach J said. “They’re already aware of Andi’s story.” He smiled, briefly, recognizing the irony of the comment. The media had been brought into the story because of his refusal to allow her to play on the team.
Andi was nodding as he spoke. “Jeff told me last night that his dad and Mr. Didinger and Mr. Barkann all talked about covering the game if we were playing for the championship,” she said.
“Is it possible we can get them to do something before the game?” Mr. Block said.
Andi’s dad was shaking his head. “I’m not a media expert, but I suspect, unless the KP–North coach actually admits on camera that he threatened Andi, there’s no way realistically to report the story.”
“What if I went on camera and said it?” Coach J suggested.
“There could be libel issues,” Andi’s mom said. “For them and for you. It’s dicey at best.”
Andi was confused by her mom’s comment. If what Coach Johnston said was true, how could it be libel? She knew that libel was saying something untrue about someone.
Her dad read her mind. “It would come down to Coach Johnston’s word against the other coach’s word,” he said, looking at her. “Since Tom Michaels has a son playing on our team and works with Ray Didinger and Michael Barkann, they could claim bias.”
Mr. Block stood up. “For now, I’ll call Keith Buckman at KP–North, and let’s be sure the media is at the game Friday. At the very least, you would hope they’ll think twice about doing anything with cameras rolling.”
As they walked out, Coach J put an arm around Andi. “I’m truly sorry about this,” he said. “You don’t deserve any of this. I started all this in September, and you hung right in there through it all. I just want to say, I’m proud to have coached you.”
Looking at him, Andi could tell he was sincere. “Thanks, Coach,” she said. “That means a lot to me.”
Which it did.